[The Washington Examiner] America's other drug war

Winston Churchill famously described an appeaser as “one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.” Today, in a very different context, his remark captures the plight of the American pharmaceutical industry.

Roughly five years after lobbyists for drugmakers worked to help pass President Obama’s healthcare law in hopes it would fend off greater government intervention, the industry finds itself under attack.

The medicine has been shown to cure about 90 percent of common cases of hepatitis C, a condition that affects roughly 3 million people in the United States and can lead to severe liver problems. Sovaldi achieves this with fewer side effects than any previously available treatment, and it works more quickly, too.